A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Who Should Defuse the Korean Bomb?

Fear of war has become a new constant for the Korean peninsula. On Monday South Korea initiated a military exercise in the Yellow Sea and North Korea threatened to retaliate. Seoul went ahead without any response from the North, but the region retains the feel of a bomb with an unstable fuse.

In the short term Washington has no choice but to uphold its alliance obligations to the South. However, Pyongyang’s increasingly erratic behavior offers a dramatic reminder of the most important cost of the unilateral security guarantee: the threat of war.

The alliance was created at a different time in a different world—1953, after the conclusion of a war which had devastated the peninsula. Only U.S. military support preserved South Korea’s independence. Since then the South has developed economically and is well able to protect itself. The U.S. should begin turning over defense responsibilities to Seoul, with an expeditious withdrawal of all American troops. The defense treaty, with America’s promise to forever guard the South, irrespective of circumstance, should be turned into a framework for future cooperation in cases of mutual interest.

The U.S. no longer can afford to maintain Cold War alliances as if the Cold War still existed. Commitments like that to South Korea are expensive, since they drive America’s military budget. More important, as we see in Northeast Asia, alliances also increase the possibility of war for the U.S. It is time to update America’s military commitments to reflect today’s world.